


blossoming alone over you

by desolateskies



Series: widojest week 2020 [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, but ultimately more hurt than comfort because that's what i tend to do, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25177366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desolateskies/pseuds/desolateskies
Summary: Before he’d met Jester, Caleb would say that magic in its truest form was power. It smelled of metal and ozone and rebirth by fire. Now, he knew better. Magic was nothing more than creation, the lingering scent of wet paint and burnt sugar and pressed wildflowers left on a traitor’s windowsill.[prompt four: paint/soot-covered fingers]
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre/Yasha
Series: widojest week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819588
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23
Collections: Widojest Week 2020





	blossoming alone over you

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to widojest week with a poly twist part four! we're more than halfway there now.
> 
> [title is from "pink in the night" by mitski]

A lifetime ago, Caleb had used the language of the gods to ask Yasha if she was an angel. It was a simple question with a complicated answer. After all, she was a harbinger of change and a being of vengeance, but ultimately beholden to the whims of higher powers.

And one of those powers had called her to heel.

The barbarian had always been quiet, but now, her absence was palpable, especially in the aching silence of the Xhorhaus. It was a small blessing to be home once more, in a space where they could regroup and plan their next course of action. 

The past few days had been a blur of emotion, especially for Jester. She’d taken Yasha’s betrayal hard, and Caleb didn’t think his keen mind would ever let him forget the way she sobbed in his arms as he pulled her away from the battlefield. Afterwards, he remembered long nights of holding her to his chest and trying to soothe her as she shook with silent tears.

When Jester loved, it was with a steady and unparalleled fierceness, tireless as the tides. Though she never felt the need to articulate her romantic entanglements, he knew that Jester loved Yasha the same way that she loved him.

And yet, Yasha had betrayed them. Caleb was no stranger to being labelled a traitor. He was intimately familiar with the realization that he’d turned his back on the people who would bleed themselves dry for him. He tried to find forgiveness in his heart for Yasha, compassion for the friend he knew was inside the woman who'd attacked them. It was difficult at the moment, as his mind reeled with suspicion that the woman he trusted was the false self--that Yasha truly was more Orphanmaker than angel.

When his mind started down that well-trodden path towards paranoia, Caleb knew that it was time to give himself a distraction. He had been holed up in the study for the past few hours, poring over books laid just outside the necessary precaution of _Leomund’s Tiny Hut._ Magic always soothed his nerves, gave his fear and anxiety a precise and focused exit point from his body. Tonight, that precision and focus yielded only exhaustion.

He was working on a transmutation spell that utilized the properties of amber to preserve objects indefinitely. This singular goal made his night a comfortably repetitive cycle. The dancing lights overhead glittered along the rough edges of five small pieces of amber arranged around a piece of paper, and Caleb knew that this would be the final experiment of the night. He drew the sigils above them precisely, movements sharp and practiced over the incessant hum of a murmured incantation.

The paper ignited.

And Caleb quietly, ever so quietly, sank to his knees as he watched this attempt end just as the past eleven had: with ash. He ran his fingers through the quickly-cooling embers, frustration warring with despair, as if the soot on his hands could explain why everything was crumbling before him.

He dispelled the hut and opened the window, allowing the scent of charcoal and defeat to drift lazily into the dark sky. 

* * *

Jester’s hands shook slightly as she deftly painted yet another dick into the wildflower mural along Yasha’s wall. This one was lavender, tucked neatly into the shadow beneath a bellflower petal.

A hysterical little giggle bubbled from her throat at the sight, because what else was there? She either laughed or she cried, and she was too tired of the quiet pity in her friends’ eyes to do the latter.

She’d known she was being too obvious with her grief when Beau deviated from her impeccable sleep schedule, laying stock-still in her bed as if ready at any moment for Jester to ask for a late-night confidant. Usually, she would take the monk up on that offer, grin as Beau offered to punch away any problem that dared land in Jester’s path. But this wasn’t a problem she wanted the others to know too much about. 

This wasn't a problem anyone wanted to know about.

The Traveler had been conspicuously absent lately, even when Jester put on her brightest smile to match her brightest dress. Maybe he was busy with those big, important god things that she could never understand, but maybe...maybe he was disappointed in her for moping around when there was chaos to be wrought.

When she was a child, he would always be there when she felt lonely, ready with the next story or scheme that would send her laughing, problem forgotten. Now, she was too old for little comforts like that, too old to make her feelings other people's problems.

Jester stood on creaky joints and padded across the floor to the windowsill. Under the ambient lantern light, the colors of the pressed flowers Yasha had lain there seemed even more faded. She still remembered being taught their names: first in Common, then in Abyssal. Yasha had a way about her that made the harsh language sound melodic, making a sad song out of a war cry.

Because, at her core, Yasha was quiet.

Because, at _its_ core, _sorrow_ was quiet. It was something that few people could wear comfortably, and it was unbecoming on Jester the way that the muted colors of Yasha's dried flowers would look strange on fresh ones. She wasn’t allowed to be any of those things: quiet, sad, muted. Not if she wanted people to look at her and smile.

 _Jester Lavorre_ , cleric and adventurer, was none of those things, because she wasn't supposed to be. She was unceasingly bright and boisterous and brimming with the desire to share it with others and-

“Jester?” Caleb’s voice came from the open doorway. 

“Oh, hi, Caleb!” she said brightly, yanked back from the brink of tears now that she had an audience to playact joy for. Her voice quivered ever so slightly, and that didn't escape his notice. His weary smile fell away in favor of concern.

Caleb looked at her for a long moment, blue eyes piercing the thin cloak of happiness she’d thrown over herself. 

And the next thing she knew, Jester was bundled in his arms, muffling heaving sobs into his shoulder. He shuddered, frozen like a tree refusing to bend to a hurricane. Then, slowly, he wrapped his arms around her.

* * *

Before he’d met Jester, Caleb would say that magic in its truest form was power. It smelled of metal and ozone and rebirth by fire. Now, he knew better. Magic was nothing more than creation, the lingering scent of wet paint and burnt sugar and pressed wildflowers left on a traitor’s windowsill.

Jester was the kind of woman that made miracles blossom to life in the palm of her hand, in the ring of her laugh. She was the kind of woman who could kindle hope in hundreds of traitors and still have room in her heart for one more. She was the kind of woman who forgot that she was worth more than the pieces of herself she sliced up and handed to strangers.

And Caleb? He was the kind of man who didn’t deserve to love her, even as she dragged him in by the back of his coat and pressed herself close. His hands were stained with the color of death and scent of failure, and he couldn’t bring himself to stroke her hair or rub her back. Not if it would taint her when she needed strength rather than corruption.

She pulled away, evening her breathing with little gasps that made Caleb’s heart ache. 

“Is something wrong?” she asked, and her eyes gleamed with tears in the dim lantern light, “am I doing something wrong?”

“Of course not. I just don’t like to see you in pain,” he admitted, and immediately he knew it was the wrong thing to say.

“Oh. Right.” He recognized that familiar tension in her body as she took the comment and used it as a tool to rebuild her defenses, a reminder as to why they should never have been dropped in the first place.

Caleb shook his head. He wasn’t one for physical touch, but she seemed to yearn for every point of contact, and he would give her what she needed. When he took her hand, he couldn’t bear to look down, to take in the way soot streaked across the pastel paint.

“Not like that. I’m here to help. How do I help you?” he said softly, and Jester seemed to splinter further.

“Just hold me.” Uncharacteristically succinct as she buried her face against his shoulder once again. “Please.”

**Author's Note:**

> to be crystal clear, yasha and caleb are not at all romantically attracted to each other. they're just bros dating the same cleric.


End file.
